Glass beads and glass production in early South India: Contextualizing Indo-Pacific bead manufacture

Abstract

Central to bead scholar Peter Francis's interpretations about the manufacture and distribution of Indian Ocean glass beads is the assertion that the Indo-Pacific bead – a small monochrome drawn glass bead commonly found at sites around the Indian Ocean – was originally produced in South India in the early centuries BCE/CE. He further contends that their manufacture continued for the next two millennia, and that in that time the artisans and/or their unique technology migrated from South India to other parts of Asia, including Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. The dozen or so years since Francis's extensive research on the Indo-Pacific bead have produced new data from survey, excavations, and chemical analyses which provide a better context for understanding this particular artifact category. Moving beyond Francis's study of ethnoarcheological and excavated materials from Papanaidupet and Arikamedu, this paper will review the available data for glass in premodern South India, including recently discovered sites in southern Andhra Pradesh, and consider strategies for reconstructing the broader socio-economic settings in which early South Indian Indo-Pacific bead manufacture took place.